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Ruth personifies the OT "quartet of the vulnerable": poor, widow, orphan, resident alien.
Each aspect of her identity compounds her vulnerability:
Each aspect of her identity compounds her vulnerability:
A poor person is more vulnerable than a rich one.
A poor widow is more vulnerable than a poor man or a poor wife.
A poor widow without a father is more vulnerable than a poor widow with a father.
A poor widow without a father in a foreign land is more vulnerable than a poor widow without a father in her homeland.
Call this “intersectional” or don’t. Either way, you have to wrestle with the compounding nature of these layers of identity and their attendant vulnerability. This is embedded in the Bible itself. Wrestling with it is more Moses than Marxist.
(Also, I did a bunch of research in Ruth a couple years ago for a paper and sermon series. There are definitely some whacky, revisionist (including Marxist) readings of it; but those readings are very different than what I outline in this thread.)
We need see other Christians from a threefold perspective: saints, sinners, and sufferers (see Mike Emlet’s book “Cross Talk”)
The anti “social justice” movement eliminates the third category. Thus, everything becomes a sin problem (“repent”) or a saint problem (“endure”).
The anti “social justice” movement eliminates the third category. Thus, everything becomes a sin problem (“repent”) or a saint problem (“endure”).
